Comments on: Leave Alex Ovechkin Alone!http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2013/05/09/leave-alex-ovechkin-alone/
We're the relentlessly fun Washington Capitals blog hopelessly devoted to Alex Ovechkin, Dmitry Orlov, and Evgeny Kuznetsov!Tue, 03 Mar 2015 20:18:00 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1By: Slava Malamudhttp://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2013/05/09/leave-alex-ovechkin-alone/#comment-37370
Sun, 12 May 2013 13:24:00 +0000http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/?p=48445#comment-37370Peter, but sports media never will, and never did, serve only to inform. Opinion, conjecture and emotion have always been an integral part of our job description. One of the earliest examples of sports writing in Russia is a short article about a soccer match between a group of gentlemen from Saint Petersburg and a team from Finland, then an oppressed Russian colony. The article mentions the score and which gentlemen “kicked for the goals” and then goes on to say that “all of the Finns were playing quite appallingly.” The Finnish team won the match.

Also, Red Grange wasn’t actually a dead horse during his college days, so he couldn’t possibly be a galloping ghost and Grantland Rice was almost certainly issuing his unconfirmed opinion when he said that a football team’s backfield was four mounted warriors (what was is with my American colleagues and equine metaphors?).

Some work does indeed contain nothing but facts, real or purported. See every single tweet by the venerable Bob McKenzie, whom I have promised to get gloriously drunk in Sochi. Some contain nothing but opinion. See almost every single tweet by yours truly (except for my tweets on religion, which are confirmed facts). Others contain both.

Opinions, by their nature, can and should be discussed. I have no problem with your taking Deadspin, or ESPN, or WaPo, or myself to task on whatever opinion we air. I find your analysis well thought-out. And, by the way, my own opinion of the Ovechkin episode is that, while a bad play, it’s not indicative of his level of dedication as a whole.

But it’s when you start saying that the article (or the headline) by Deadspin is indicative of media as a whole, due to the fact that narratives is all we care about, you go after a profession. A hard one. According to my sources, in Russia, it’s the one with the second highest level of alcoholism after traffic cops.

I don’t know if this matters to you, but I hope it does: I didn’t imagine you at all in the writing of this article.

I don’t know you to erase parts of a story in effort to present the most digestible version of it. I haven’t seen that in your work at all. I have seen it in others’ (Deadspin, Big Lead). Those are the (bad) writers I called out in the piece. Those people eschewed information in service of story. If you think I’m prioritizing a narrative, please point me to where I did the same.

I’ve got a lot of respect for you, and I worry that I’ve slighted you in a way I didn’t intend.. All I want is a sports media that serves foremost to inform– which is not unreasonable. I don’t really know how to reconcile with the post-post-post-modern reading of it: that Ovi’s initial awesomeness is no longer so awesome but in fact the reduced awesomeness is an endemic flaw in the media but wait wait wait no that’s a flaw in myself.

My only only only point is that criticism and praise of Alex Ovechkin– in my observed estimation– is out of proportion. That’s not radical at all. And I’m saying that with more information– and less sensationalism– readers would be better served.

Y’know– that’s no so radical after all.

Again– you rock.

P

]]>By: Slava Malamudhttp://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2013/05/09/leave-alex-ovechkin-alone/#comment-37360
Sun, 12 May 2013 04:29:00 +0000http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/?p=48445#comment-37360I’ll start from the end. Let me assure you, I write good. In fact, writing goodly is what done got me my professional status, after a few years of working for pittance. I don’t know who and how got their pay-check-ability in any other way, but I will admit that there are those whose goodity of writing is not up to snuff. I cannot argue their position. Writing ungood doesn’t come naturally to me and I can’t put myself in their shoes. I do object, however, to being lumped with those whose writing is unwell.

But getting money-paid for good-writing, in my case, came after putting in the kind of work-torture no blogger can possibly imagine-comprehend. I will not expound on the pleasures of deadlines, screaming editors, all-nighters and (my personal favorite) working a World Championship bronze-medal game with a second-degree concussion right after filing 4000 words in the same condition because the newspaper cannot just freaking go and print a blank page, now can it, because all of it, pertaining to the ancient medium of paper, will likely make you laugh derisively. I myself am not even sure anymore whether I had to use Morse code or not. Engraving skills were likely required.

I am also not sure whether my personal work history is representative or comparable with North American colleagues, whom we, Russians, tend to view in about the same way as King Leonidas’ splendidly naked homies would view a modern-day drone operator.

All that I knew or cared about was that my ability to continue providing lower-middle-class income for my growing family sorely depended on the expediency, quality, accountability and reputation of my work. Which tended to make its content and my approach to producing it substantially different from someone who is a) a fan, b) doing it for excrement and chuckles, c) plays by his own arbitrary set of rules.

Which is not to say that said individual’s work cannot be of better quality than my heroically filled-out inches. It is only to say that said person’s attempts to accuse me of unprincipled, biased narrative-spewing have a more-than-trivial capacity to offend.

Writers have opinions. There are articles which can be written without them and there are those that cannot. Opinions, by definition, may or may not soothe a fan’s soul by being 100% agreeable with his or her cherished emotions. It is within a fan’s right to present their own opinions and respectfully call a writer out on his being the fan’s favorite kind of sexual deviant. Or scrupulously calculate the exact level of shit in his work.

It is ironic, however (to say the least), to accuse writers of being fixated on narratives while pushing a narrative of your own. Which is pretty much the whole definition of being a fan, the last time I checked the array of stains on my own Dominik Hasek jersey.

And, truthfully, for the amount of times I see it on blogs, “media is pushing a narrative” has become much more of a narrative in itself than anything Mike Milbury, bless his hard-drinking soul, has ever said. For every sullen-eyed beat writer who looks at a singular lazy Ovech-play and sees the topic of his next column, there is a legion of smug bloggers who see a writer having an opinion and scream bloody narrative.

I don’t know what a perfect blogger’s world looks like. Perhaps it’s a world in which reporters are replaced by simple, cheap, easy to assemble tape-recorder holders and all the fun and opinionated banter is left to the fans. But seeing as we’ve invented sports-related banter in the first place, I hope you understand that we won’t go quietly.

]]>By: Peterhttp://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2013/05/09/leave-alex-ovechkin-alone/#comment-37356
Sun, 12 May 2013 02:53:00 +0000http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/?p=48445#comment-37356I appreciate the comment, Slava, though I don’t think you’re being fair. First, I myself admitted Ovechkin’s play was lazy, and we have been very critical of him in the past. We are homers, but we investigate our own biases.

Second, the story of Ovi’s lazy backcheck only succeeds when the reporters, who know better, skip over the facts of the situation: failed breakout, Caps down a goal, Johansson avoiding hits along the boards, Ovi skating in neutral, Ovi colliding with a guy. To sell this story, reporters have to obfuscate, and that is the opposite of their jobs.

Finally, I don’t see what amateur/professional status has to do with it, but I’d love to hear you expand on what your point is there. I don’t have player access or a travel budget, but I write better and think harder than lots of pros. While I don’t presume you follow my writing closely, I think my record stands up. “Fan blogs” have biases, but those biases are avowed, and they are way less sinister than the actual biases (like the above mentioned confirmation bias) that make sports writing mostly shit.

Cheers.

PS written from my phone

]]>By: Slava Malamudhttp://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2013/05/09/leave-alex-ovechkin-alone/#comment-37355
Sun, 12 May 2013 02:22:00 +0000http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/?p=48445#comment-37355Yes, we know. We are unprincipled narrative-pushers, the bunch of us. People should only trust fan blogs, those paragons of objectivity. Because if you can’t trust a guy in the stands screaming at a ref for a sober analysis, whom can you trust? People who are paid to provide it?

Seriously, guys… I love you, I always try to give you ink, but your crusade against the bogey-man of the “MSM narrative” has become a narrative by itself.

]]>By: Hockeynightincanadahttp://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2013/05/09/leave-alex-ovechkin-alone/#comment-37119
Thu, 09 May 2013 22:58:00 +0000http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/?p=48445#comment-37119I’m actually surprised Backstrom has received some flack. Backstrom played a very strong game along the boards and defensively last night. He occupied his man Callahan around the defensive zone crease, he prevented Boyle from entering the Ranger’s blueline to try and keep the puck in. That’s how you do it.